PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Black students were suspended from Rhode Island’s public schools last year at the highest rate in nine years, while white students were suspended at a record low rate, a civil liberties group said Monday in a report on racial disparities in school discipline.
An American Civil Liberties Union review of state data from the 2012-2013 school year found that black and Hispanic students were disproportionately suspended relative to the size of their populations.
Black students made up 8 percent of the Rhode Island student body but accounted for nearly 18 percent of all school suspensions, the report said. Hispanic students represented 22 percent of the population, but made up 35 percent of all suspensions.
By contrast, white students made up 63 percent of the student body, but represented 40 percent of suspensions.
The ACLU, which issued a report last summer based on a review of data going back to 2004, said its overall analysis shows that state schools “use out-of-school suspensions too often to punish even the most minor infractions, with particular impact on students of color.”
The report added: “The failures of Rhode Island’s school discipline policies have for too long funneled children - especially children of color - out of the classroom and toward the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, said officials hadn’t yet seen the report and couldn’t immediately comment.
Suspensions overall were down dramatically following implementation of a 2012 law that prohibits out-of-school suspensions for attendance violations, the ACLU said. Last school year, there were 15,971 out-of-school suspensions, compared to 21,848 the year before.
But the report found that more than 60 percent of suspensions in 2012-2013 were for “low-risk behavioral infractions,” including disorderly conduct and insubordination/disrespect. Suspensions in those categories were up.
The ACLU said a “disturbingly high” number of elementary school suspensions continued last year, including of 147 first-graders.
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